Walt Whitman

Already known for his volumes of poetry, including Leaves of Grass, writer Walt Whitman volunteered for service as a hospital nurse in Washington, D.C. In the nation's capital he discovered that more than 50 hospitals and convalescent camps had been set up in wooden barracks, public buildings, and within vast tents, some of them covering entire city blocks. Moved by the many stories of individual suffering and sacrifice, he set down his thoughts in letters, in diary entries, and in regular dispatches to newspapers back home in New York. The following dispatch describes Whitman's encounter with a young and deathly ill soldier from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and reveals how the writer's care and sympathy saved a life.

Dispatch to the New York Times, February 26, 1863. The military hospitals, convalescent camps, etc. in Washington and its neighborhood sometimes contain over fifty thousand...